Laughter
by Ayien
Summary: Four perspectives on the breakdown of the Perfect Soldier. [Complete]
1. Trowa

This boring night is a blessing, for it allows me to study him in silence The clicking of the keys of his beloved laptop fills the silence as the two of us sit in quiet contemplation, I with a book in my hands, he with his computer. Duo is snoring slightly on the couch, wrapped in his travel blanket- black, of course, with little silver embroidered scythes on it, courtesy of Hilde- with his long chestnut braid twisted around his wrist.  
  
Quatre is still in his library; this is one of his many houses we're staying in, although the rest of us are unused to such opulence. Wufei is presumably already asleep, unaware of the fact that his sword hilt has been covered with Super Glue in his absence, thanks to Duo.  
  
I lean back against the leather back of the chair, looking over the anthology of Shakespeare I hold in my hands. The keys stop clicking momentarily; I look up at the sudden absence of rhythmic noise.  
  
He is sitting before the fireplace, staring at the screen of the laptop. A sudden shiver rolls across his skin as his closed, blank eyes darken in some unidentifiable emotion. I prepare to inquire as to what is wrong, but am cut off with a wave of the hand.  
  
Slowly, almost regretfully, he pulls his pistol from wherever he conceals it (we've never been able to find out, which makes it a running joke that he has some sort of secret portal in his shorts) and loads it with an audible click.  
  
He goes to his room and returns, shrugging into a tattered denim jacket. I set down the book and watch silently as he arms himself with several knives, hidden in the sheaths sewn into the jacket. He looks up at last, chocolate hair messy as usual.  
  
Words float across the silence in his clipped, flat tone. He tells me that he's leaving, that he doesn't know when he'll be back, and in event of his death, to tell the others that he's sorry. A rare smile, beautiful in its angry sadness, crosses his lips before he turns and leaves, door closing behind him.  
  
I pick up the heavy volume again, but am unable to read it, thinking about him. It is obvious that he thinks of himself as only a weapon, and why not? It is all we have been used for; faceless machines of war, dogged by regret, guilt, and self-doubt.  
  
He shows no sign of that, but Quatre has told us that he feels much more then we do. All the accumulated emotion of his life is still locked inside him, as though it is a weakness. He tells us to follow our emotions, and that advice has always been right, but it seems as though he can't do it himself.  
  
All of us fear him, at least a little. In battle, we all have our rituals. Quatre apologizes, Duo screams nonsense and self-praise, trying to block out the screams, Wufei lectures the enemy on justice as he kills them, I am silent, praying to whatever God might exist as I fire.  
  
He laughs.  
  
It is a torn, mad laughter, seeming to be ripped from his throat. Tears stream down as he laughs, a howling shriek of unholy mirth. We know why he laughs; it is Zero. Quatre, under its influence, destroyed a colony, killing millions; the other has somehow learned to control it.  
  
Like a tiger in a cage, it claws at his mind, and Quatre has told us sometimes, even as he fights, that the Zero System is driving him to insanity. That is its curse; that is its price. Of course, no one can say that he wasn't insane before.  
  
We are all weapons of war, children who can never be children again. The side door opens and he comes in, soaked to the bone. Blood trickles from a deep gash across his cheekbone; yet another scar to add to his collection. He nods to me and walks upstairs, hand catching the droplets of crimson life.  
  
For now, we will all wait and watch, and listen.  
  
Listen to his laughter. 


	2. Quatre

Another day, another safehouse. Silence fills the still air as I watch Trowa move his pawn forward, capturing Duo's queen. The pilot of Deathscythe curses in his colorful American dialect, pale fingers tapping restlessly on the edge of the chessboard as his dancing violet-cobalt eyes move intently over the black-and-white squares. Wufei is outside, practicing one of his many katas. A sudden, sharp jolt of pain spears through my chest as I lift a hand and clutch the skin above my heart in an instinctive reaction to my Space Heart. Resignedly, I lean back into my leather armchair, wiping away a few beads of sweat.

I've become accustomed to this pain, as I've dealt with it every day since I met the quiet pilot of Wing. Even when he's on the other side of the planet, or four colonies away, the dull ache of trapped emotions never leaves me. I can never identify the emotions, either; they're always too mixed, jumbled, shaken and stirred into a frothing cocktail of blindingly strong feeling. Slowly I glance through the large bay window, seeing his small, wiry frame perched on the side of the eaves, darkly dispassionate eyes forever roaming the landscape in search of absolution.

I once heard Professor J arguing with the other doctors. He said that one boy's life and sanity was a small price to pay for the salvation of the world. That's true to ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the general population, unless you know that boy. Not allowed to feel fear or weakness, love or hate, he projects his fear onto us. He has to save us, because he cannot save himself. I wish I could reassure him, hug him and tell him that it's okay to cry, okay to care about his own life.

I remember his first self-destruction all too clearly. It continues to haunt me even now. A boy in the prime of life, a teenager who should be out driving a car and going to movies and snacking on pizza, throwing his life away as if it had no more value then the dust beneath his feet. The click of a button, so much desperately sad resignation in a sound so small. I remember smoke and flame, ashes and shrapnel flying through the atmosphere. I remember seeing shrapnel and metal pierce his rough, scarred body. And then he fell. In the awed, shocked silence, I saw blood and flesh stream upwards towards us, blue eyes remaining focused on Zechs Merquise. All of us were terrified at his ease, his complete and total acceptance of the fact that his life would end right there.

The OZ soldiers wept along with us as he fell to earth, a dying, fallen angel with blood staining the purity that could have been. The OZ soldiers too were afraid, horrified and fearful at his acceptance. A low, heartfelt whisper drifted over the airwaves from some anonymous OZ soldier.

"Why? Why should a little boy, a child, be made into _this_? This desperately tragic, lonely angel?"

As his body dwindled into a tiny black speck, we turned back to kill the OZ troops, knowing somewhere inside that we could never, would never, reach that agonizing perfection of calmly accepted death. I stand and look out the window, a resigned, heartrending smile tugging at my lips as I look at him, still searching vainly and desperately for some sort of absolution, some sort of redemption, some assurance that he is not the puppet Dr. J attempted to create. I can't give it to him. None of us can.

Two warm hands land on my shoulders. I turn and look at Trowa, his brilliant emerald eyes also focused on the heartbreaking young man suspended like some grotesque gargoyle on the windowsill. He looks down at me and returns my smile. Trowa understands my wish to help Heero, my desperate wanting to hold him and reassure him. I turn back to stare out the window, hands locked behind my back.

Perhaps someday, Heero, you will find your penance, your absolution and redemption.

But no one except you can give it.


	3. Duo

He worries me sometimes. Oh, come on; don't give me that look- you know who I'm talking about! Hmph, well, if I really need to tell you who I'm talking about, I will: Mr. I-have-no-emotions Heero with-permanent-stick-in-his-ass Yuy, who else? The boy who's really, incredibly, unfairly beautiful, and yes, I'm secure enough in my own masculinity to say that! Geez, wear a braid and everyone automatically assumes you're a 'poof,' as the slang was on L2.

I'm a possessive bastard, so I didn't really take kindly to the fact that he stole some parts off _my_ buddy, Deathscythe, without even batting an eye, although I suppose that's his version of fun. Yeah, that sounds about right. The only real time I ever saw him with genuine emotion in those eyes that seem to hold all the starlight in space was when we sprinted through dirty city streets, flashing through foul-smelling alleyways, and he would reach so nonchalantly out and swipe some random object off a vendor's cart.

Although he did have a lot more patience then I ever did, dealing with that blur of pink that followed him around constantly. And there he goes again, over in the corner, assembling his gun while the rest of us watch some cheesy soap opera. Click-clack, the noise is enough to drive me insane!

He worries me because, and I'm quoting from a conversation I overheard between Professor G and Dr J, 'he lives to make himself obsolete.' Even though I'm the one who's constantly pushing him to stop referring to himself as a machine, it is the best analogy I can come up with. A computer will work tirelessly at any task you tell it to, constantly assembling and coming up with better computers, until finally, the first computer is no longer needed, and is left to rot in some trash heap.

Heero works for peace, but as he is nothing but a soldier, he cannot survive in peace. What need is there for a perfect soldier if there is no war for him to fight? It's ironic, really, how Relena keeps following him about, thinking that he loves her, when really, she is the embodiment of what will eventually destroy him.

Doctor G once took me along to a meeting with the other doctors. I sat in our little shuttle and listened through a wire as they argued, debated, and threw merciless insults at each other. It is no small wonder that five crotchety old bastards could create five boys that kept an entire army on the run for three years.

Dr. J apparently began showing them footage of Heero's assassinations. I remember distinctly the sound of the terrible silence that filled my headset, broken only by Doktor S's heavily accented outrage.

"How- how _dare_ you! That _thing_, that _perversion_, that you call a Perfect Soldier, is nothing but a well-trained sociopath! How dare you take a child and deprive them of all humanity and kindness, until they have become a murder machine!"

As soon as he spoke, the other three scientists added in their dissent. Doctor G agreed, saying, "At least our protégés have some semblance of humanity; they have the ability to enjoy things! What will happen to your Perfect Soldier when the wars are over!"

Dr J spoke, "Heero knows his duty. He will terminate himself."

In unison, the other four scientists spoke. "You are disgusting, J."

I notice Trowa and Quatre staring at Heero. He is sitting there, in his shadowed corner, dead eyes riveted to the television screen. A little girl, dressed in a white frock, walks across a field of yellow flowers, followed faithfully at her heels by a puppy with honey-blonde fur, on the screen in an advertisement for dog food.

Heero's gun thumps to the floor as he gets up and leaves the room.

He worries me sometimes.


	4. Wufei

The war has ended.

The war has ended, and so too has Yuy's life.

And it is so sad, to look at him where he stands in the shadows of the hall, watching Peacecraft speak to the assembled nations, skinny and small and pale, fingers stained with blood and gunpowder.

I was born a scholar with inky fingers, poring over texts and papers and ancient history until Meiran came, fiery and burning from the inside out with a sense of purpose, and dragged me from my hiding place.

But all my knowledge pales beside Yuy's, for he is a scholar, too, but a scholar of fear and death, a playwright whose ink is blood and oil and whose paper is the piles of disembodied organs frozen and twirling silently through space.

A comet that illuminates the world, and burns out so quickly, purpose fulfilled. And I think that perhaps his purpose is the saddest thing, for one with such intelligence as he, such skill and cunning, could have been a guiding star, pulling the world forward into a new age.

But as it is, his purpose is to kill, and the star for the world has instead become a red harbinger comet of war.

A comet that is right over the horizon, poised to fall, to become caught in the Sun's gravity and streak away into the darkness and softness of death. Death, for I am not so foolish as to think that heaven will be given to him. To Barton, perhaps. To Maxwell, almost certainly. To Winner, certainly. To me-

I am almost sure that the sign on the gate to Paradise will be 'no.'

But for him, there is no perhaps, only the certainty. His fingers twitch on the grip of his Glock as I watch, blue eyes hollow as he watches Peacecraft, the girl he would have loved, if he had ever been able to stop hating her. '_To love another person is to see the face of God_.' I read that once, and it was true for me. Not for Yuy. For him, to love another person-

To love another person is to kill them.

I have watched him with the ones he loved, embraces the spatter of blood on skin, kisses the sound of bullets crashing through bone and tearing synapses apart into uncoiled threads, sex the rattle of breath rushing from lungs seizing inside a hollow body that is no longer life's prison.

To love another person is to liberate them, in his tormented brain, to free them from earthly pain and concerns, to tear their body apart and throw their soul away.

To hate them is to let them live, to let them age and become worn down and expire surrounded by ones that love them, rather than tearing them from life and allowing their loved ones to blame him.

And so he hates me, hates Winner, hates Barton, hates Peacecraft most of all.

I wonder where he will die, once her speech is over. I wonder who will find him, sprawled on the floor with an empty gun in his hands. It will not be us, the lost generation, the children who died for liberation, for we will remember him as he was: broken, hating, enslaved, insane.

We will not make him a martyr.

He moves, chambers one round. The speech is ending.

I turn and look at the others. Winner's face is pale porcelain, the skin above his left eye twitching. Barton's head is bowed, scarred fingers moving in the motions of a symphony. Maxwell's head is up, eyes open and fixed on Yuy, lips moving in whispers as his fingers click through the rosary. How quaint of Maxwell, to think that one such as Yuy could receive salvation. His voice shudders through the last of his prayers.

"Into Paradise may the Angels lead thee; at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem. May the Choir of Angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once poor, may thou have eternal rest."

The speech ends. Yuy looks up, meets our eyes, turns and disappears into the shadows. His footsteps fade.

A shot, heard only by us, rings through the darkness. Winner crumbles into sobs, Barton's hands jerk through a terrible spasm, and Maxwell says in a voice choked with tears,

"Lord, grant him eternal rest, and let light perpetual shine upon him. Let him rest in peace."

I am silent, but mouth the last word along with him.

"Amen."


End file.
